The E.T. relationship is a possibility, as I'm very open-minded about Extraterrestrials.

The problem is when it becomes a type of racism, i.e. as if non-Caucasians couldn't have possibly built that by themselves, so it must have been with help from outer space.

Unfortunately there are a number of Euro-centric and Ashkenazi-centric people in academia who always jump at the chance to try to discredit the achievements of melanated or darker-skinned people.

Speaking of which, some claim that the first Buddhist statues were Gandharan, which are said to have first appeared in the first or second century C.E.

However according to the above History Channel episode, the Ajanta Caves began to be carved around the second century B.C.E.

So it makes me also wonder if the "Enkay-Tenkay" Buddha carvings apparently found near Chandvad India are older than the Gandharan statues:

Lhug-Pa wrote:

Egyptian-Rite Mason Upasika H.P. Blavatsky wrote:...the difficulty of the archaeologists still exists, if not in the fact of idols being ascribed to early Buddhists, then in the physiognomies, in the type of all these Enkay-Tenkay Buddhas.

They all, from the tiniest to the hugest, are Negroes, with flat noses, thick lips, forty-five degrees of the facial angle, and curly hair!

There is not the slightest likeness between these negro faces and any of the Siamese or Tibetan Buddhas, which all have purely Mongolian features and perfectly straight hair.

This unexpected African type, unheard of in India, upsets the antiquarians entirely. This is why the archaeologists avoid mentioning these caves.

When they can no longer keep a lid on it, it must have been "aliens".

Anyhow, I do think that some of the 'new age-ish' speculations on the Extraterrestrial-Tibetan connection could also be a possibility. Not because I would think that Tibetans aren't capable themselves of being very cultured without outside help; quite the opposite, as some Tibetans are perhaps one of the few people in modern times evolved enough to have regular contact with Extraterrestrials (of course I also think that there could very well be a handful of people from all races currently evolved enough to have contact with Extraterrestrials; yes, perhaps even some Caucasian Ashkenazis & Europeans)....

montana wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHeel1GNFFYenjoy.I really would like to hear your thoughts about the stupa/space craft.

I don't want to be rude but since you asked ... if not At the very least, it's a distraction from the dhamma for yourself, and the kind of thing that ties Buddhism to the loopier New Age stuff in the imagination of "mainstream" western society.

If the thought of demons Never rises in your mind, You need not fear the demon hosts around you. It is most important to tame your mind within....

In so far as the Ultimate, or the true nature of being is concerned, there are neither buddhas or demons. He who frees himself from fear and hope, evil and virtue, will realize the insubstantial and groundless nature of confusion. Samsara will then appear as the mahamudra itself….

Lhug-Pa wrote:The E.T. relationship is a possibility, as I'm very open-minded about Extraterrestrials.

The problem is when it becomes a type of racism, i.e. as if non-Caucasians couldn't have possibly built that by themselves, so it must have been with help from outer space.

Unfortunately there are a number of Euro-centric and Ashkenazi-centric people in academia who always jump at the chance to try to discredit the achievements of melanated or darker-skinned people.

Speaking of which, some claim that the first Buddhist statues were Gandharan, which are said to have first appeared in the first or second century C.E.

However according to the above History Channel episode, the Ajanta Caves began to be carved around the second century B.C.E.

So it makes me also wonder if the "Enkay-Tenkay" Buddha carvings apparently found near Chandvad India are older than the Gandharan statues:

Lhug-Pa wrote:

Egyptian-Rite Mason Upasika H.P. Blavatsky wrote:...the difficulty of the archaeologists still exists, if not in the fact of idols being ascribed to early Buddhists, then in the physiognomies, in the type of all these Enkay-Tenkay Buddhas.

They all, from the tiniest to the hugest, are Negroes, with flat noses, thick lips, forty-five degrees of the facial angle, and curly hair!

There is not the slightest likeness between these negro faces and any of the Siamese or Tibetan Buddhas, which all have purely Mongolian features and perfectly straight hair.

This unexpected African type, unheard of in India, upsets the antiquarians entirely. This is why the archaeologists avoid mentioning these caves.

When they can no longer keep a lid on it, it must have been "aliens".

Anyhow, I do think that some of the 'new age-ish' speculations on the Extraterrestrial-Tibetan connection could also be a possibility. Not because I would think that Tibetans aren't capable themselves of being very cultured without outside help; quite the opposite, as some Tibetans are perhaps one of the few people in modern times evolved enough to have regular contact with Extraterrestrials (of course I also think that there could very well be a handful of people from all races currently evolved enough to have contact with Extraterrestrials; yes, perhaps even some Caucasian Ashkenazis & Europeans)....

I have noticed the Euro centric approach when I was in HS and university. Unless you take specialized courses you will hear only about Europeans in depth. There's a large body of literature dedicated to the deliberate downplaying of non-Christian history as a method to keep Americans unaware of the "outside world". Can you imagine if Americans realized that the countries the US goes to war with have real PEOPLE living in them?

Historians and Journalists are literally being called terrorists now if they mention something that goes against the propaganda.

montana wrote:I have noticed the Euro centric approach when I was in HS and university. Unless you take specialized courses you will hear only about Europeans in depth. There's a large body of literature dedicated to the deliberate downplaying of non-Christian history as a method to keep Americans unaware of the "outside world". Can you imagine if Americans realized that the countries the US goes to war with have real PEOPLE living in them?

I can agree with that - about 95% anyway. The view of the US from outside it is vastly different from the view of the US from inside it, and if that was true about a person, you would have to worry about their sanity. Sure, the same could be said of other countries, but usually to a far smaller extent. The US is big enough, rich enough and powerful enough that it can afford to ignore other countries far more than most. I encourage Americans to use Al Jazeera http://www.aljazeera.com/ as their primary news source for a while so that they can actually learn another perspective.

However - and this is a big however - none of that means we should throw away common sense and critical enquiry when confronted with something which doesn't fit the dominant paradigm. Some stuff that looks crazy at first sight really is crazy.

I think its funny that buddhists have texts that discuss alien worlds and supernatural events fairly regularly but when it comes to the idea of aliens or otherworldly beings somehow having anything to do with seemingly impossible ancient architecture, the default mode for faithful buddhists is "that's a lot of nonsense. People built that. LOL."

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

padma norbu wrote:I think its funny that buddhists have texts that discuss alien worlds and supernatural events fairly regularly but when it comes to the idea of aliens or otherworldly beings somehow having anything to do with seemingly impossible ancient architecture, the default mode for faithful buddhists is "that's a lot of nonsense. People built that. LOL."

I personally believe that there are beings living on other planets. It makes perfect sense to me. But when I see things like Dubais Burj Khalifa tower I have no reason to doubt human capacity and ingenuity. Why are the specific cave dwellings made by aliens whereas the dwellings and churches of Petra in Jordan are made by humans? The troglodyte city of Cappadocia? Kandovan in Iran? etc...

Just because we cannot understand how they were built way back then without the technology we have now (being lazy slobs incapable of even lifting an adze or carrying a piece of rock) doesn't mean that they weren't built by humans.

Ever seen an ancient Roman acqueduct? There are still remnants of the acqeduct system here on the island where I live. It carried water from a water source on top of 1km high mountain in the centre of the island all the way to the town of Mytilene. A distance of some 30 something kilometers. It had a descent rate of something like 1cm per 100 meters in order to keep the water flowing. Just looking at the size of some of the hewn stone blocks is enough to make ones back ache (let alone hewing and moving the suckers. Aliens? No. Slaves? Yes!

padma norbu wrote:I think its funny that buddhists have texts that discuss alien worlds and supernatural events fairly regularly but when it comes to the idea of aliens or otherworldly beings somehow having anything to do with seemingly impossible ancient architecture, the default mode for faithful buddhists is "that's a lot of nonsense. People built that. LOL."

Did you at least watched the "documentary"? It is filled with grotesque hypothesis, some even saying that one statue of the Buddha showing some mudras is in fact not showing mudras but showing how to handle the command controls of a spacecraft... I mean, you don't even need to have a brain to realize that Tsoukalos and Childress have gigantic issues and should be medicated (for their own sake).

padma norbu wrote:I think its funny that buddhists have texts that discuss alien worlds and supernatural events fairly regularly but when it comes to the idea of aliens or otherworldly beings somehow having anything to do with seemingly impossible ancient architecture, the default mode for faithful buddhists is "that's a lot of nonsense. People built that. LOL."

Did you at least watched the "documentary"? It is filled with grotesque hypothesis, some even saying that one statue of the Buddha showing some mudras is in fact not showing mudras but showing how to handle the command controls of a spacecraft... I mean, you don't even need to have a brain to realize that Tsoukalos and Childress have gigantic issues and should be medicated (for their own sake).

My statement was a general statement about the general topic raised, not this doc specifically or the Ajanta Caves, specifically. I just find it funny how unwilling to believe in aliens or supernatural type things actually happening in our world supposed believers really are.

This is an interesting lecture someone posted the other day which caused me to think about stuff I take for granted as "true." The guy is a bit hyper, but I assume he is pressed for time and really wanted to say everything he had planned.

Yes, it does. There is a lot that the creators of the show intentionally get wrong and it is not too difficult to debunk. Makes you wonder why they go to such great pains to fudge the data, even twisting the words of their regular crazy-haired guests.

"Use what seems like poison as medicine. We can use our personal suffering as the path to compassion for all beings." Pema Chodron

You know how in debate you set up a straw man argument by misrepresenting people's position?

Well, by pushing crazy people into the spotlight or paying actors, website builders, bloggers, etc. to appear crazy and present alternative views you build up an idea in the society. "alternative views are inherently crazy".

Then people stop thinking and believe only what they see on corporate news even if it doesn't fit with your own experience.

Did you all know there are protests going on in Bulgaria and Turkey? They have somehow come under the impression that a foreign country(Israel) run their countries. And yet for some reason the corporate news agencies run by Zionists are not mentioning it.

So I guess it's a conspiracy that protests are happening in Bulgaria and Turkey. And even more of a conspiracy that they are protesting the zionists that have infiltrated their government. Right?

Someone should go tell all those Bulgarians and Turkish that they're mistaken about their protests and that the news stations know what's really going on.